Kate_N

I just feel that it is so competitive out there these days and it is rarer now to go straight from vocational school into a  company, and as she is young for her year it might be beneficial to take another year honing her  technique.

 

If what you want is the competitive advantage, then I think you may have to pay for it, in some way or other. It doesn't sound like she wants to do an MA - what about a PG Cert[ificate] or Dip[loma]? From October there will be up to £10k available in postgraduate student loans funding, for those who have paid the £9k pa undergrad fees.

But it sounds like what you think she needs is a further year of full-time vocational study - rather like a repeat year? What about a full-time fee-paying school? Is there anything near you (I'm thinking of Hammond et al).

I went to university at 17 and coped, the professional dancers in my family both went abroad at 14 and 16 respectively, for training & then work (at 17). It can be done, thousands have done it - ballet is an international profession.

Rosella Hightower is probably one of the top schools in Europe, if not the world! Anything there would be fine. And a beautiful location. The Neumeier School (Hamburg), the John Cranko School, and the Munich International Ballet School are all top German vocational 'Berufsfachscule'

Good luck!

When you say that "If she doesn't feel ready to start auditioning for companies" what does your daughter mean by "ready"?

Does she mean she thinks her technical skills aren't up to professional standard yet? or is she (or you?) worried about her maturity? 

If it's the former, then wouldn't it be best for her to speak to her teachers, work out what she needs to work on, why she isn't there yet, and a plan for a further year of technical training, which wouldn't have to be at a university. Lots of great suggestions upthread. Here's one more: Could she put together a programme of training via working at a major studio (in London, I'd say Danceworks), going in to do a couple of the Professional level classes each day + maybe some Contemporary or Pilates into the mix? If you go to open class regularly, teachers will get to know you, and will teach you, rater than simply giving class. 

If it's about funding, to stay at a university, there won't be funding for a 4th year unless that is part of the course as enrolled in, or to start again somewhere else after one's first year. There's no student funding for an extra year because someone isn't ready in the set of skills and knowledge they've been studying. If she needs a further year, it would have to be a postgraduate year.

If it's that she (or you) is worried about maturity - I think you'll have to find another way than staying in the safe "womb" of a school or university. To be frank - from my own experience, seeing my students, and the experience of members of my family, to make a career in the arts you need to be brave. You need to be so driven that you get over shyness or fear. So she probably just needs to "feel the fear and do it anyway" as the self-help books say. 

As well as up, I always think of weight forward, particularly coming into land, after turning.

Of course you can. Depending on where you live, there will be one or two, or many more classes per week. You're already doing a recognised pathway of study - you just need to find a way to do few more classes each week, and maybe look at all the week-long or weekend intensives for adults to keep pushing your dance study. There are lots of threads in here giving information about adult intensives, workshops, and weekly classes.

Good luck!

I don't want to sound harsh here, but there are some tough questions you may need to think about. You don't have to answer these questions online here, but you might like to consider them, to help you make decisions about where to study next. 

I'm just going from what you've posted here, but you say you didn't get in to London Studio Centre, LCDS, NSCD and Laban. But that you definitely want to perform, work in a company, set up your own, and eventually teach. Are these really realistic goals given your ability, facility, and current stage of training & knowledge? Are you at a sufficient standard at the moment to move towards the next level of education so as to achieve those goals? If not (and rejections from those schools might suggest that) then what training do you need to do now to get to the requisite standard for full vocational training for professional standards?

Did you get any feedback from those auditions? Is there a trusted professional - maybe one whose done what you aim to do - who could give you straightforward but constructive feedback? At this point in your training, it seems to me that you need to identify where the work and training needs to focus.

I'd really counsel against going to a university Dance degree programme just because you think you need to go somewhere. It's a big investment of time (and loans) UNLESS it gives you what you need to get to the next level. So you need to be very rational - it's not clear from your first post just what put you off Middlesex, and attracted you to Edge Hill.

It's difficult, but you need to look past glossy brochures & Open Day talks. I speak as an "insider" - a professor in a performing arts department. We try to be absolutely clear about what modules we offer and studio hours, library/independent study demands, and so on. We are also very upfront that we are NOT a vocational training school. And this is where you need to be very careful - ost university courses are not the same as vocational 'conservatoire' courses (we talk about vocational training places as conservatoires in my field).

So, as others have said, which university course will give you enough training hours to reach your goals? Ask about studio training hours. Ask about performance opportunities. Ask about guest teachers and choreographers. Look at where graduates from these programmes work one, two, three years after graduation. And don't just talk to staff; talk to current students. Delve into the Departmental websites to see what information & resources are there for students. Most websites have their UCAS course info pages, and then their actual working teaching pages. Look for those.

This might seem completely left-field, but you might be better not going to university at all, spending a gap year, working in an undemanding job, and taking two classes a day at an advanced level in ballet and contemporary. There will be cities where you can do this. Think of it as putting together your own training programme, to get you to the standard where you can reach the standard which would get you into a vocational school/conservatoire. This might be a more productive year than going to university, with the high costs involved, and finding that the course doesn't give you what you need.

Although - and I've said it in a post upthread - there are university dance courses which will give you a good basic professional standard training, but NOT at the intensity of a vocational school. Plymouth and Roehampton spring to mind, as well as Middlesex.

Good luck!

Re: Funding: Under student loan/finance arrangements, students can have up to 4 years loan funding (at interest rates below commercial rates) for a first degree. This is because there are some degree courses which are 4 years, but it also allows students who realise they've chosen the wrong course to start again and re-do first year.

Yes, I've seen the same issue that Rowan reports. In my field in a university, it has become increasingly difficult for artists - working bona fide performing artists - from certain countries to get visas to come to us to perform and teach. It's a really complex field, and even though we in the UK are not part of Schengen, we reap the advantages of freedom of movement in the Eurozone.

I'm trying to be careful of not debating the referendum here   but I know that ballet, like all the performing arts, is an international industry and always has been. We need to have the best we can attract to this country (both students and performers) and we need to be able to send our best (students & performers) out to conquer the world!

Thanks for this. I'll have to see if I can travel up - the R&J day looks great.

Well, I know that employing people in this country, we need to give preference to EU citizens, if they are qualified for the job. In my field, we work very internationally, so sometimes when I'm selecting new staff I have to choose between an EU citizens and a US citizen (rarely is the EU citizen a UK citizen - we are just not training enough people in my field domestically). I remember once it was very even between two applicants - we wanted them both! HR stepped in and said that if it really was so equal between an EU and a US candidate, the preference was with the EU candidate.

If there is an exit from the EU (OMG I really really hope not), then we will all need passports, visas, and work permits to work beyond the UK, and the US candidate could have been employed over a non-UK EU citizen. 

And any EU citizen studying in this country will pay Overseas student fees (currently around £12,000+ pa at universities) while any UK citizen would have to pay OS student fees everywhere else in the world.

Disastrous all round for an increasingly globalised world, I'd have thought. And that's only thinking about those in education and young workers, not even thinking about the 2.2 million UK citizens retired into other EU countries - far more than other EU citizens who've come to the UK ...

Amsterdam overall is a very safe, compact city with great public transport, so distance between school and accommodation shouldn't be cause for concern. 

Speaking as an academic, your daughter really needs to choose the university course which is best fit for her. There is always a way to dance.

And as an adult dancer, which is what she'll be, she might like to discover a whole new world of dance beyond RAD. I don't know Durham well (although it's my father's university!) but there is an excellent dance culture in Newcastle so that might be the fix there.

In London, there are various places where she can pursue RAD syllabus work, but as an adult, I always wonder why getting grades and qualifications is such a thing, unless there's a career aspect to it. At Advanced RAD level, your daughter should be ok in the advanced level classes at Danceworks (which in my opinion has a better range of serious ballet classes than, say, Pineapple) and could probably try the a professional level classes there. Doing daily class outside of a syllabus gives you a lot of experience in picking up choreography, making an exercise work quickly for you, and making a style of your own. And you learn from watching actual professionals which is almost reason enough to go to that sort of class!

And then there are all sorts of other dance forms. As an adult student dancer, I think it's important to widen horizons and learn about all sorts of other forms - I've just done my first Bollywood dance workshop and am going to another in a couple of weeks.

What I see with a lot of adult dancers who've done fairly intensive training but haven't made a career of it is a period of adjustment when they start to wonder what they dance for. It can be quite tough, but I always hope that they come to realise is that it's the pleasure of dance and moving, a well as the challenge of mastering an insanely difficult art form, that is the daily challenge, not the grades and qualifications.

Good luck to your daughter - it's great she's in the position of choosing between two absolutely top notch universities (neither is mine, btw, so no bias!)

And by the way Classical doesn't just mean the so called 'white ballets' - it refers to the style of ballet - there are plenty of other, recently choreographed classical ballets such as those which David Bintley produces for BRB on a regular basis.

Technically (speaking as an historian in the field) "Classical ballet" refers to the period in the last third of the 19th century when the Russian Imperial ballet style started to dominate European stages. The earlier period is that of 'romantic ballet' - so Giselle is a romantic, rather than classical ballet. Whereas Swan Lake is a classical ballet.

But that's just a distinction for a specialist historian, I suppose.

Wonderful attitude, Moneypenny. Wonderful post!

About the "classical job" - as far as I know (two professional dancers in the family), any ballet company will do all sorts of dance, so I think anyone aspiring to a "classical job" has unrealistic expectations or maybe limited knowledge of the current dance scene internationally. I think part of the problem is making the transition from being the very talented one in a suburban ballet school for children, maybe run by someone with the requisite RAD certificates but not much other experience, and working as a performing arts professional. The best vocational schools train dancers for the dance world, so they can work with a wide range of choreographers who make contemporary art. And part of any dancer's education should be seeing as wide a range of dance as is available in their area. Not just the white ballets ... 

Very few areas of post-compulsory education lead directly to life-long career jobs nowadays. Dance, and other performing arts, are harder than other areas, but the training is a good in itself. 

Also, WHEN is he stretching? My teacher (trained in Dance Science as well as an ex-professional dancer) is very stern about not doing static stretches before class. They actually damage and weaken the muscle fibres. She's forwarded this to us, which may be of interest.

http://dancemagazine.com/inside-dm/what_are_they_doing_wrong/

There's really no such thing as "good feet for ballet" - it's about the way you use them. You need to learn to work the feet through all sorts of positions, and develop the small intrinsic muscles for strength and stability. And I second the advice about not scrunching up your toes - the idea is to think about stretching your ankle and toes out and along.

Try a search here to find a good adult beginners ballet class - or see if there's a studio that will let you start with the basics with 8-10 year olds. If you're 17 and have never done ballet, you won't be able to study with those your age, I'm afraid. But if you learn the basics well, you will be able to start to catch up.

Imagine doing a full plié over 16 counts. Or those grande battements in half a count!

This came up on my Twitter feed: it's really interesting.

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/watch-how-morning-ballet-class-has-changed-over-the-last-200-years

I think the other thing I've noticed about teachers whom I know teach at vocational schools is that they have that 'something special' to pass on - be it years as a soloist, or as a choreographer, or trained in various places. This is not something that the paper qualifications can always match ...

Try googling "images hyperextended legs ballet"

This looks wonderful. And Leeds is such a fabulous city. Thanks for posting, Janet.

A BA (Hons) in Dance from a university can lead to a lot of things, not always as a performing dancer, but usually dance-related. It's a little bit like a BA (Hons) in History or English or French - there are jobs which draw very specifically on the content & knowledge of the degree, but there is also a wide range of jobs which require graduate-level skills, but not always specific content.

There are very few conservatoires (the usual name in the HE system for "ballet schools" which offer post-secondary education) where graduates go on 100% to jobs as dancers performing in a company.

A good BA (Hons) in Dance will have information about graduate employment destinations, or you can check the HESA statistics for graduate employment, 6 months after graduating.

You could also look at the dance-related roles as educators, community arts workers, freelance dancers, commercial dancers. With further training there are roles as dance therapists, or even building on dance knowledge to train as health therapists (eg physion, personal trainer, and so on).

If you look at reasonably high-entrance universities, there will be a very solid critical/analytical education - something maybe a student raised on a BTEC and with the dream of working as a performer may not enjoy or feel committed to. However, many artists of all genres (painters, actor, dancers) make work funded on a project basis by the Arts Council or local funding bodies - they'll need to be able to write applications for funding which are read & evaluated by people like me - so they'll need to be able to articulate their vision, their process, and the orginality & innovation they're experimenting with, or seeking to find, through making their work.

>>lots are probably wearing them underneath layers of other clothing<<

Yes, that's pretty clear from the photo linked to above. Much the same the world over in adult open ballet classes, in my experience!

I'm in a related area: I'd seriously consider Middlesex rather than Edge Hill. It's a far better university academically, and has been teaching dance for a lot longer. But neither course will focus on ballet - most university Dance degrees are focused on contemporary dance, choreography, performance making and critical studies.

Can you regroup and look at the much wider range of university Dance degrees? The course at Plymouth is excellent, and Royal Holloway is about to launch a single Honours Dance degree - you'd be in one of the best university departments in the country. And also there's Roehampton and Surrey.

Edge HIll really doesn't stand up to any of these, although Middlesex does.